If the setting had been scripted by Richard Curtis - Four Courses and a Digestif, say, or Lunch, Actually - it couldn't have been any more perfect. At the back of an ancient black-beamed cottage, twisted and turned by time, was a terrace beneath a sky the shade of blue that art directors pick out for Greek travel brochures. Beyond was a manicured pasture where children frolicked - pastures are always for frolicking on, never playing - and beyond that, poking shyly through the mighty trees, the spire of an English church, guardian to a graveyard of the village dead, gone but still so much with us. Chocolate box? Oh yes, and sweet enough to make the least sensitive teeth shriek in agony. Members of the UK Independence Party would probably regard a photograph of this as nothing short of porn. All it needed was a waft of Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending and the picture would have been complete.

When the setting is as good as this, as unforced as this - and the long-range forecast promises many more azure skies this year - the job of the food is very simple. It doesn't have to succeed. All it has to do is not fail. For the most part, that's what the cooking at Moonrakers in Alfriston manages. At this point I would love to tell you that it is named after arguably the worst of the James Bond franchise (though, as a 12-year-old, slumped in a seat at the flicks in Weymouth during one summer holiday, I loved Moonraker. James Bond! In a safari suit! In space! With lasers and everything!). Instead, apparently, it takes its name from the local smugglers' habit of raking the river by moonlight for contraband. How disappointing.

No matter. It has been running for years, with variable quality, but was taken over recently by Robin Bextor, a television producer and director, who still occasionally shoots the videos for his daughter Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and spends the rest of the time down here tending to his little bit of England. Not that England is what you think of when looking at the menu. At lunch there is a three-course menu at a very reasonable £15, with three choices at each course, and there is very little to unify the dishes. They feel at times like a bunch of things your mate, who can cook a bit, has refined over years of trial and error - though in a good way; most of them do the job well.

Moonrakers poussin. Photograph: Katherine Rose

Herring roes, seared off in brown butter, are soft and creamy inside and a little crisp on the outside. A soup of celery root, its smoothness testament to a few turns through the chemise, carried a dollop of brisk apple purée. More left-field were some hunks of pork belly, long braised in a Chinese-style anise-infused liquor, with a few sprightly chillies and pine nuts. Very nice - hell, it's pork belly; what's not to like? - but a non sequitur for all that.

Mains had the same curious "these are a few of my favourite things" feel: an exceptionally well-cooked and perfectly seasoned piece of lemon sole, served on the bone, for the pescatarians. For the meat eaters it was half a poussin, the appeal of which I have never understood. Let the chicken live a little and develop a bit of flavour. Still, it was solidly executed and came with some very fine pieces of salsify. The vegetarian option was simply hilarious: a walnut and sage omelette. Oh sure, it was a nice omelette, carefully presented. The flavourings - those nuts, that herb - suggested care and attention to detail. But it was still a bleeding omelette. Can you imagine the twitch in the corner of the eye of unwitting vegetarians on seeing that on the menu. What? You don't do flesh? Oh sod it, I'll just beat up some eggs.

There was, as there often is, salvation at dessert: an iced white chocolate parfait, delivered on a plate sprinkled with crumbs of coconut, shavings of cocoa and granules of sugar to add texture, a deep dense chocolate pot and some rhubarb, still with a little bite and acidity, with a light custard. But the image that will stay with me came after this, when, being the thoroughly metrosexual male that I am, I asked for a mint tea. Of course, said our charming waiter, who slipped back inside, only to reappear with a pair of scissors with which to snip away at the foliage around us for my infusion.

And with that, a part of that lovely view, a few leaves of England, became my lunch.